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M onica needed to get on with her mission!

She wanted to take care of Andy, but she worried about Helen.

When she met Andy a couple of years ago, she had been dating a bear—not now.

But she and Andy still lived too far apart for a meaningful relationship.

Yet she loved his gallantry when he saw her changing a tire on the side of the road.

Still, she had an independent nature and didn’t want any guy to think she couldn’t change a tire.

Learning he was a polar bear and seeing his interest—the smiles, the brushes of his fingers against hers when he handed her another lug nut, his scent—indicating he was intrigued with her, she couldn’t help but make a similar connection.

Briefly, she had wished he were living in Anchorage. She would have dated him in a heartbeat.

Her relationship with her boyfriend had been getting rockier by the day.

They didn't do anything special together; they just watched TV at her house.

His place was always a disaster, and she hated to trek through the clear aisles because everything else was so cluttered.

Unlike when they first started dating, they no longer went out to the movies, ate out, or did anything together.

Andy had the sweetest, mischievous smile when she had worked with him to change her tire. And he bought her a meal. She suspected he had wanted to date her if she’d lived closer by.

She couldn’t believe she would run into him again, in not such a good way.

She didn’t want him to injure his ankle further while he traveled with her to the cabin. And she didn’t know if he could help her take Denny into custody after all the strenuous effort he would have to make to get there.

He could rest in the back of her car with the heater on as long as the snow didn’t cover the exhaust pipe. He could keep his foot elevated under the emergency blanket and another couple of blankets she had from home for urgent cases until she returned, or help arrived.

The only alternative was shifting into his bear form, which could pose other problems if someone came to rescue him and found a polar bear instead.

She finally found an oak tree in the forest with a branch she thought might work for him.

She stood up and struck the branch, wrenching her back and bruising her arm for sure.

A cracking sound resounded, and the branch fell onto the soft snow.

She sniffed it. It smelled like hardwood, not weaker wood like the other.

She hated having to rip the branches off the trees and damage them. Her arm would be bruised, and with every strike she made, she hurt her strained back muscles even more. She grabbed the branch in her mouth and carried it back to Andy.

“Hey, I thought you’d left me until I heard you break off another branch in the distance.”

Annoyed Andy would think she would have left him and continued with her mission, she dropped the new branch before him and grunted, waiting for him to see if it worked.

“I need something more to wrap around my foot to keep it warm.” He grabbed the branch and struggled to stand on just one foot. “This is much better. Thanks.”

She ambled back to her clothes, shifted, and hurried to dress. She was toasty and warm when wearing her bear coat, but removing her clothes before or after she shifted was awful. She was so chilled!

“I’ve got a bag with emergency clothes in my car's backseat. I would be grateful if you could get another pair of socks out for me if you can open the door,” Andy said.

“I’ll try. I still think you should stay here. I could help you get to my car, and you can sit in the passenger seat. Or you can lie down in the back seat. I have a couple of wool blankets in there. You could elevate your sprained ankle and rest up. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

“I’m going with you. You have a partner in this no matter what.”

She sighed and walked over to his car. She struggled to open the door, finally wrenching it free. She grabbed his radio, but it wasn’t working. Searching in the backseat, she found his black backpack underneath a blanket, and a first aid kit was located under the car's front seat.

“Is there anything else you need besides your first aid kit and backpack from your car?” she asked.

“I’ve got my gun and handcuffs on me. A couple more handcuffs, extra clothes, water bottles, and protein bars are in the backpack, so that should be all we need.”

“Okay.”

Carrying his bag, she left the car and returned to Andy. She crouched beside him and tried to unzip the bag, but groaned. Darn hand.

“I’ve got it. Rest your hand. We should wrap it, but we can’t do so while you wear heavy gloves. The glove will probably help protect the injury.” At least Andy was glad his hands were uninjured, but he didn’t want her to do more than she had to if he could do the work himself.

He dug his socks out of the backpack and pulled one on, then another, over his foot, his ankle killing him. Shifters healed in half the time of humans, so he hoped his ankle would be fine before long.

“How is your back?” He had seen her wince several times while trying to do things.

“It hurts.”

“What about when you shift?” He pulled the plastic sack over his foot, secured it, and then tried to stand using the branch, but she quickly helped him with her good hand, which he appreciated.

Standing on solid ground was one thing, but trying to stand in deep snow was another.

“My back hurts all the time. After I’ve rescued the kidnapped woman, I’m taking some time off work to recuperate. Hopefully, it won’t take long for this to heal.”

“I know. I was thinking the same with my ankle.”

“Right. Seriously, can you make it all right? If you can’t make it, I’ll have to leave you behind and rescue the woman. I don’t want to leave you in the snow to freeze to death.”

“Yeah, I can make it.” If she could do it the way she was feeling, he could do it. Even if it killed him, he wasn’t letting her do this on her own. “Besides, if I can’t make it, I can always shift into my bear coat, so you don’t have to worry about me freezing to death.”

“As long as no one catches you like that.”

The wind, snow, and his injury wouldn’t keep him from being there for her and for the kidnapped victim.

She slipped his other boot into his backpack and helped him get his pack straps over his shoulders. He secured it in front.

“Let’s go.” She trudged through the deep snow, her feet sinking deeply with each step.

He followed close behind, his own footsteps muffled by the layers of white covering the ground while he tried to keep his balance and not step on his injured ankle. She was a small figure in her dark jacket against the vast, snow-covered forest, and he was a shadow following in her wake.

After the first mile, he struggled to lift his legs through the deep snow, and his feet had become numb. She had also begun to slow down and was trying to lift her feet through the deep snow, packing it down as much as she could for him.

He watched her, admiring her determination and strength. She was like a force of nature, determined to conquer whatever obstacles lay in her path. Even in the face of such harsh conditions, she never faltered. He, on the other hand, kept stumbling.

The path she created was narrow, and he struggled to follow in her footsteps. But he was determined to keep up with and support her despite their challenges. After another two miles, her shoulders tensed, and her steps quickened as they neared their destination.

She kept looking back to see that he was still with her, and he appreciated that she was worried about him. He was concerned about her, too. He’d had whiplash from a car accident a couple of years ago and knew how painful it could be.

Knowing how dangerous this situation could be for the kidnapped victim, he tried to keep up with Monica. "So, what's the story about the woman and her kidnapper?"

"Helen Wright was with her new boyfriend, Pierre Johnson, at his place in White Bear. Her ex-boyfriend, Denny Wilson, went to the house, knocked Pierre out, then took off with Helen. She had a restraining order against him because of stalking and prior abuse.”

“Sounds like Denny is bad news.”

“Exactly.” Monica explained that the little girl kidnapped in the nearby town was why she was close enough to take on this job.

"I sure didn’t hear about that. I was trying to locate stranded motorists and thought I saw a car stuck in the snow down the embankment ahead of me.

I parked, got out, and took a closer look.

The snow had buried most of the roof even.

When I dug out enough to look through the window, I found no one inside the vehicle.

So the driver must have gotten out before the car was buried. "

"Oh, good, two or more people might have needed rescuing. Though you could have kept them company in my car."

Andy realized just how stubborn Monica was. "I began walking back to my patrol car when I saw your headlights through the screen of snow. You were driving at a high rate of speed, headed straight for me."

"For your car, you mean. If you hadn't stood before it, I wouldn't have been headed straight for you." She struggled through the snowdrifts in the woods, just like he was.

He was getting out of breath when he thought he was in great shape. His heart was beating hard from the exertion, adrenaline surge, and pain in his ankle. He figured she was having as much or more pain than he was with her back and hand injuries.

"I thought you didn't see the car because when I looked for any occupants of the buried vehicle and returned to my cruiser, my car was half buried in snow. Not to mention how difficult it was to see because of the low visibility with the heavily blowing snow."

"And you thought"—she paused and then began to climb over a fallen western hemlock that had been partially buried—"that I could see you any better?"

She got to the other side, then held out her good hand to help him over it.